


Infinite Regress

by Kieron_ODuibhir



Series: Cirque de Triomphe [17]
Category: DCU, The Flash (Comics)
Genre: Barry does not actually appear, Dysfunctional Family, Earth-3, Eobard's obsession survived alignment shift intact, Gen, IT RHYMES, Mirror Universe, Protective younger brother, Thermonuclear War, Time Travel, evil speedsters coming soon to a fic near you, i can complain about Flash continuity for hours just watch me, i just reread this and legit can't believe the line 'heyo eo' exists even tho i wrote it, it is technically all one family, save the day, what cutesy nonsense is this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-05
Updated: 2017-01-05
Packaged: 2018-09-14 17:09:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9195515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kieron_ODuibhir/pseuds/Kieron_ODuibhir
Summary: The thing is, the Dash was unstoppable. More unstoppable than the Ultraman, really—not as obviously powerful, but the Kryptonian they kept catching. He had weaknesses. The Dash was beyond that.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Tiiimmmmmmme travelllllllllll. Flash continuity why. The 25th century is canonically hella uptight, btw, and the Science Police are totally DC-real and kinda totalitarian. That everybody sleeps in footie pajamas in the future is just me.
> 
> Please note that pre-Crisis Eobard Thawne had a little brother in his original timeline, whom he personally retconned out of existence for reasons too lengthy and weird to enumerate here. Also his parents are micromanaging lunatics who among other things once had a major academic institution shut down because their son was obsessed with his job. Thawnes, man.

They think he's crazy. Everyone thinks he's mad. He's been locked out of some of the most important archives, to avoid exacerbating his delusions, but he made copies of everything he needed long ago. It's all in his lab.

If they knew about that, they'd take it away. But he's quick and careful, and nobody knows. It's not as if they're watching him closely; he's not paranoid, no matter what they think, and no one believes a former museum curator with delusions is going to accomplish anything more alarming than drinking himself to death. And since Eobard isn't remotely alcoholic, no one is worried.

Which is fine. There's nothing to worry about.

He's going to save the day.

One particular day, in 1998.

It's destiny.

There's a message on his personal device when he comes back from the lab—he doesn't carry it there, of course; if his shielding held the loss of signal would raise a red flag, and if it didn't hold the Science Police could access his systems remotely through the device and monitor him at his work. They'd ruin everything.

It's from his brother. Speaking of Science Police. He plays the audio track while he changes into his nightclothes. "Hey-o Eo," Robern's voice says. "Just checking in. Like last week. Are you ever going to pick up a call again?" Six seconds of silence while Eobard steps into the legs of his pajamas. He does it carefully, one foot at a time into its nest of fuzzy false-fleece lining. He makes a point of taking his time about things sometimes these days, maybe to remind himself it's possible.

"Guess you're really not there," Robern said three hours ago and the computer repeats now. "Or you're being especially stubborn." A sigh. "Look. Just because we're adults now and Mom and Dad can't assign us mandatory bonding sessions for psychological optimization doesn't mean I'm not still your little brother. I worry."

There's nothing to worry about.

"Just…call and let me know you're still doing alright," Robern said. "I can't keep Mom off your back forever."

That's been Robern's doing? Maybe Eobard does owe him a call.

"If you're doing unlicensed science…please don't let me find out." There's a weighty pause. "Delete this message," Robern ordered, and signed off.

Eobard is touched.

He'll get around to calling back when he's finished with his latest treadmill adjustments. For now, he brushes his teeth and collapses into bed.

* * *

 The thing is, the Dash was unstoppable. More unstoppable than the Ultraman, really—not as obviously powerful, but the Kryptonian they kept catching. He had weaknesses, emotional and to specific forms of radiation. The Dash was beyond that. For a few years, his threat level just kept rising, past anything the police could hope to handle and then beyond what the area vigilantes could muster either. And they were good, they were very good and he's studied all of them, but not like he has their nemesis. Because there was always something that didn't quite fit. All those years of randomized brutality and coldblooded greed, and then…

Then, there was the Thermonuclear Incident. It's theorized that Allen believed he could harness even greater power by absorbing the strength of a bomb or twelve, but no one is sure. He is one of the few villains of his era who made a point of never explaining himself. An enigma to the last.

But never as enigmatic as the yellow mirror-image that appeared to avert the destruction of the planet that day, calling himself Zoom, saying he had come from the future to save the past. And vanishing again just as quickly.

Not only the costume but the bone structure, the line of the jaw had been the same. Years later the Dash had been confronted by the similarly identical hero the Blue Bolt, who had always denied any connection or knowledge to Zoom. (Eobard noticed the resemblance in his own mirror for the first time when he was nineteen. He didn't understand what it meant for years after that.) There had been another Zoom later, too, but it was the mystery of the first one, appearing just in time to save the world and vanishing again, that caught the imagination even five hundred years on.

It was theorized by many historians that this incident had shaken Dash's confidence, because he'd become less wild after that, not exactly less dangerous but more calculating. More patient. He'd taken on an apprentice of sorts a little later. The consensus was that the mysterious Zoom had led him to realize the limitations of his own power.

But Eobard knew better. No one had studied that era like he had; no one alive could venture better guesses as to Bartholomew Allen's motivations.

The Dash had been biding his time, and building his power base. He wanted a _dynasty_. Far away in the twenty-first century, right now, he's setting a trap.

Whatever Zoom did that day long ago, when he foiled the thermonuclear scheme that would have vapourized the twin cities and devastated the hemisphere even before fallout began to spread, Dash had sworn revenge. And he was prepared to wait as long, and run as far, as it took.

Five years before the Injustice War, the Dash vanished. Consensus suggests he mouldered in an unmarked grave like many an ill-fated bandit marauder before him. Eobard knows better.

His time machine is almost ready. He's had the suit finished for years. The chemical bath he developed to negate air friction while moving at the Dash's speed has been tweaked as close to perfection as it is likely to get. Once his replica treadmill is done, he won't be able to put off his journey any longer. He isn't old yet, but neither is he really young; his physical condition is as good as it is ever going to get, and success might be foreordained but that doesn't mean he can afford to cut corners.

The day will be saved, because it was. He will come home. And then he doesn't know whether it will be one day or ten years later, but once he has made the journey, Barry Allen will come for him.

It doesn't have to be the end. He might win. It might all work out. All the same, though. All the same.

Eobard has known for years that no matter what, he would survive right up until the day he made his voyage to the twentieth century. He would, because he _had_ to, because it had _already happened._

Lightning always strikes twice. Once in the past and once in the future, he will face the Dash. And if he survives both times, well—

Then, maybe, it will be fair of him to ask that pretty reporter Rose out for dinner.

**Author's Note:**

> Things Eobard does not know: 1) Blue Bolt is his five-centuries-worth-of-greats grandfather. 2) Blue Bolt was Barry Allen's long-lost twin brother. 3) Before locating Eobard, the Dash will go five hundred years further into the future to catch up with his wife and father twins, one of whom will marry a girl from the Thawne side of the family and produce the villain Impetus. 4) Motion is Impetus' clone, not yet another twin. 5) Rose is already seeing somebody, sorry pal. This version of you will presumably not respond to this discovery with murder.
> 
> 'Lightning always strikes twice' is something Eobard said fairly recently, in a memorable scene after DC revamped him into a modern creepy nemesis but before he engineered the immolation of all spacetime. 
> 
> I, uh, stuck this in sequence at the time he's planning to go to rather than at the very end where it technically chronologically belongs. Eobard is already mentally in 1998, that's my excuse.


End file.
